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12 March 2010 16:03

Manufacturing key to recovery

Strong PMI readings suggest that manufacturing will lead growth in the first quarter of 2010.

Whilst production for January disappointed, we expect South Africa's manufacturing to remain the main impetus to growth in the first quarter. Manufacturing data, released earlier this week, showed output fell 0.6% m/m after rebounding strongly in the closing months of 2009. Nevertheless, the seasonally adjusted Kagiso purchasing managers' index-a forward-looking indicator of manufacturing-jumped to 60.4 in February from 53.6 in January. The latest reading marks the fourth consecutive month that the index has exceeded the growth-neutral level of 50. The largest improvement was in new sales orders, which rose strongly in February and had been inching upward in the prior three months. The inventories component of the index also rose strongly, indicating near-term demand is growing, and inv...

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11 March 2010 14:18

The great empowerment hoax (and how it saved SA's economy)

SAIRR's Frans Cronje disagrees with Denis Beckett that the new racism benefits no one.

JOHANNESBURG - Some weeks ago the institute published an online SAIRR Today column making the c...

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09 March 2010 16:56

Sasol's right of reply

The oil firm claims it is not true that a hefty R3bn was put into the pockets of executives.

Alec Hogg's article "Mistakes exposed as tide turns" of 9 March 2010 contains some worrying errors that has resulted in a misrepresentation of the facts.

In the article, Mr. Hogg refers to "...putting a hefty R3bn into the pockets of executives..." This is not true.

The R3bn share based payment to which Mr. Hogg refers does not refer to payments made to executives, nor payments to anyone. It is essentially a non-cash cost charge that reflects the difference between the fair value of a share and what was paid for that share. The R3bn amount relates primari...

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